Could Apple make wristwatches cool again?

Recently, while having having lunch with colleagues, one asked what time it was. He chuckled as the younger adults at the table checked their smartphones, while we older folks looked at our watches.

I even glanced at my wristwatch despite the fact that I was holding my iPhone in my hand, checking e-mail.

Conventional wisdom says the wristwatch is headed toward obsolescence, done in by cell- and smartphones that always show the time on their screens. Younger people generally don’t use them.

But there’s a benefit to having a wearable device that provides information quickly, and the watch may have a renaissance in the digital age.

Over the weekend, both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is working on a wristwatch that will use so-called bendable glass and will interact with other iOS-based devices. This news follows the launch earlier this month of the Pebble, a watch with the same kind of e-Ink display found on Amazon’s Kindle e-readers. It works with Android and iOS devices to deliver nuggets of information.

The stories focus more on the bendable glass aspect, a technology developed by Corning. But Nick Bilton of the Times speculates on what an Apple watch might be able to do:

Apple declined to comment on its plans. But the exploration of such a watch leaves open lots of exciting questions: If the company does release such a product, what would it look like? Would it include Siri, the voice assistant? Would it have a version of Apple’s map software, offering real-time directions to people walking down the street? Could it receive text messages? Could it monitor a user’s health or daily activity? How much will it cost? Could Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, be wearing one right now, whispering sweet nothings to his wrist?

Such a watch could also be used to make mobile payments, with Apple’s Passbook payment software.

Of course, neither the Pebble nor the unconfirmed Apple device constitute the first smart watch. For that, you’d have to go back to the earliest LED and LCD digital watches, some of which had tiny keyboards. For a while, I wore a Timex Datalink watch, which pulled in contacts and other information from my Windows PC via flashing lights on the monitor that fed it data. Later models connected via USB.

Then there were Microsoft’s SPOT watches, which connected via FM signal to data supplied by MSN Direct. The watches were big, not particularly attractive and required a fee to keep the data flowing. They were discontinued in 2008 and the MSN Direct service – which was also used to feed traffic information to some GPSes – was shut down in Jan. 2012.

Apple may have gotten its inspiration from what accessory makers did with its sixth-generation iPod nano. Companies like WristJockey created straps that turned the nano into a watch. Unfortunately, Apple reworked the iPod nano and changed its design, killing off this third-party initiative.

We’re clearly approaching an age of wearable computing. Google’s Glass project, which embeds a connected computer in an eyeglass-like headset, could go on sale as early as this year. You can already buy wristbands that monitor your health and transmit the results to a smartphone app.

The wrist is the perfect place for a device that provides quick, necessary bits of information. In the past, the time and data sufficed. One of the reasons watches have fallen by the wayside is that they aren’t perceived as a useful enough for the effort required. Truly useful smart watches could change that.

If you don’t wear a watch now, would a smarter device convince you to strap one on?